"I am not impressed by Lucasfilm's tendency to keep information from their fans."
THE FOLLOWING IS MY OPINION. WHETHER YOU CHOOSE TO AGREE IS YOUR CHOICE.
oh, I have to wipe my monitor off now, it's covered with incredulously spewn coffee! The vast majority of the hardcore members of this forum live and die by "I found this information out, I'm not telling you what model part was used on the unseen ass-end of this (insert prop here) project!!"
Don't get me wrong, y'all do amazing work, often equal to the best in the biz, but for the most part, unless there is a chance to make profit off of your brothers here, the idea of sharing information is completely alien.
Case in point: Studio Scale Y-wing project. The freakin' Manhattan Project wasn't that secretive!
Greater things can be accomplished through open sharing of information, in shorter time. Secrecy only impedes progress. We all want our stuff to be perfect. It's all replicas, so why not go Open Source with the info?
Only two things come to mind as might be the reasons: Paranoia and greed. Neither will do anything to make the replica prop world a better place.